Pulse
by venuscomb
Summary: Each time Brittany feels Santana's heart speed up or slow down, she has a new name for the heartbeat. Meant to be read with jeune fille en fleur's story of the same name.


This story is Brittany's point of view; for Santana's point of view go to the amazing Jeune Fille en Fleur's page—her story is also called "Pulse".

I had no idea how loud the heart was, until I laid my head against your chest that first day in the park. How loud _your_ heart was, and so fast, and getting faster. The tree branches flicked little shadows over our arms where we wound them together around your waist, and the lights went in and out on the leaves like they all had dimes taped to their backs.

And then I put my cheek against your breast and my ear to your skin and the sky turned bluer. Very blue. A hard beat and its echo, over and over.

And your breathing, and the wind, a little, sounds that seemed almost the same. Like all of nature was inside your body. And I thought that later, my ear pressed to your back one night in your room when I'd pulled you into my lap for no good reason, the room dark except for damp light coming in the window. I held you tight around the waist and you held still, your hair smooth as a hundred feathers against my face as you turned your head to try to look at me. And you sounded like wind. Or like I'd put a seashell to my ear, but instead of the water it was just the wind rushing over the sea. And when you spoke I was listening so hard that your voice came to me like it was through water—loud but hard to understand.

Tonight, you lie on your back in my bed and I wind around you, the whole world dark around us, you lit like a sea creature in a red tide, every movement lighting you up in the dark. Your warm skin a contrast to the empty black of the air. Your shining hair soft and wild against the sheets.

I settle my arms tight underneath you, one arm braced under your shoulder and my fingers tangled in the sheet under the pillow, the other arm tugging you close to me first at your waist, then gliding up under your shoulder blades. Your breathing is faster even before I nose up your belly between your breasts. I press my cheek there, putting my ear to the spot where your heart is, and listen. You try to calm your breathing down. You steady your breaths to something I could dance to, easy, _five six seven eight._

I move to my side, hook my leg over yours. I slide my hand under your shirt to the satin skin. Your breathing begins to sound like something clipped with scissors around the edges. I slow down and let my fingers lie loose, only my thumb moving along where your ribs rise above your belly. I hear my voice in your chest when I hum, and your heart speeds up.

_Rabbit,_I tell you, your heart as fast as one's.You take a deep, unsteady breath, and I keep moving my thumb over your skin. I remember holding a rabbit in my hands once, how its heartbeat seemed to take up its whole body through the super-soft fur, all its warmth folded into my hands, and a beat pounding against my skin that felt, not like fear, but like _almost-fear, could-be-fear_ as I cradled it and lifted it against my chest, my own heart hard to remember as I focused all my feeling into my fingers and the surface of my skin where it rested against me.

But your heart, the rhythm of it, goes slower and faster. When I roll on top of you again, sliding my legs between yours and putting my hand over your heart—you're so slender it's like I'm touching your heart, like there's almost nothing between your heart and my hand—you're beating even faster against my palm, so I whisper _mouse_as my lips graze your neck on my way up.

And your eyes open in the dark and focus on me, and your lips part, and your eyes are like water at night as I lean closer. I touch your lips once, barely, and your heart goes hummingbird-quick under my hand. I don't tell you how fast that is. I whisper _bird_before my lips press deep onto yours, and your breath is fast as see-through wings. I remember a bird pressed lightly between my hands, as I brought it up in fingers closed like a flower, all the way to rest against my neck, all the bird's turning feathers warm and beating with its pulse.

And after my hands and mouth and body have mixed up with yours, so that it seems like there are birds flapping their wings in your chest, a bird everywhere I press to you, your breathing is hard. Like you've grown bigger than you were. _Mammoth,_I whisper, and you nod as I curl in close against you again, your heart pounding everywhere in your chest, your seashell ribs close under my head.

You're breathless as you ask what you are when you're asleep, but you ask. And I don't know at first. When my cheek is to your breast, in the dark, what are you that I've ever felt? And I think of your easy breathing, your water-at-night eyes closed to me, the way you're the ocean with its calm rush of waves. And finally I say _mermaid,_and I feel you stretch out with a long breath you don't know you're taking, so that you curve and straighten beneath me, then go easy so my body fits all along yours again.

_Could you always feel this, before?_I listen as I feel you take a breath, my cheek rising with your chest. _The way my heart—_you don't have the words—_when I'm with you? _My thumb had gone back to its tracing, but I hear your voice and I want to calm you down. I slide my cheek along your skin and feel you shiver under my hair sliding over you. I hover again, kiss just at the place where your ribs curve down like wings. I say _sometimes_because the answer's yes. I can't remember not feeling your heartbeat all over me, shuddering through me, when my cheek was tucked into your chest. When my hand was practically touching your heart.

I know it's alright that I told you because you're petting me, stroking my hair back behind my ear, your fingertips drawing little curlicues down my neck and over the top of my chest.

_I'm still afraid sometimes,_you tell me.

Did you just tell me that? I take your hand from my skin, kiss the soft center of your palm where I can almost feel your heart again, kiss each finger, and lay your hand against my cheek where I can hold you to me with my hand on the back of yours.

And when you tell me again that you're afraid, afraid of my knowing so much so long ago, I melt. _Don't be afraid, Santana,_I tell you, and pull your hand past my breast to press to the center of my ribs, then off-center. I press your hand there hard because I want you to feel all of it. _Feel._I lean forward to kiss the inside of your elbow. I don't want you to be afraid.

I feel the shudder that runs through your body just as I feel your hand twitch a little over my heart. I feel my cheeks go a little hot—you've never touched my chest just to feel my heart, just to rest there and listen. _Rabbit,_ I whisper.

You take a slow breath. I feel you thinking. I feel you hesitate, not sure whether to believe me. But my heart is there under your palm, telling you.

_Always?_you ask.

I smile against your skin. If you can believe that I am just as—shaken—as I feel you are. _Every time,_I tell you, and I feel you believe me.


End file.
